Foreign Perspectives

Since online photos are generally only around, say, 300 pixels by 200 ie 60,000 pixels, you might think that it doesn’t really matter what camera you choose for taking photos intended exclusively for online use.

In theory, that might be correct but in reality it’s a theory that doesn’t hold much water.

First off, if you take photos of fast-moving objects such as in a car race you’ll soon find that a compact digital is very hard to use because there’s quite a delay between pressing the button and the photo actually being taken. Try the same thing with a digital SLR and you’ll find that the photo is taken almost instantly. The difference is very noticeable and makes taking images of cars in races and similar very easy vs virtually impossible.

The larger image size lets you crop out parts of the image without reducing the quality as displayed or printed. To be fair, the increasing resolution of even quite cheap cameras these days sometimes overtakes that of low end SLRs so this point is less of an issue than it was even last year and probably by next year both types of camera will have similar resolution.

There’s also the issue of accessories that are available for SLRs which you simply can’t get for compact cameras. The single thing that’ll make the most noticeable difference to your photos is probably the ability to use bounce flash on an SLR which eliminates red-eye but goes way beyond that.

Finally, even if the compact camera has the same resolution as the SLR, the larger lens on the SLR makes a considerable difference. So much so, that it’s quite noticeable even in images shrunk down for the Internet. Consider the two images here. The larger flash has obviously made quite a difference and the flat feel of the photo taken with the compact is replaced with a more 3D quality. However, look at the detail in the two photos: the door on the SLR photo is much clearer.

What about the cost though? Well, these days the increasing sophistication of the compacts is taking their price upwards whilst the SLRs are generally getting cheaper. Net effect is that, at the moment, you’re looking at paying around 50% more for an SLR vs a good compact.

The biggest plus point of the compacts is that they are small and therefore, in some cases, you may find that it’s much more practical for you to take photos on a regular basis with one as you’ll clearly not be carrying around an SLR everywhere.